There should be one last thrown chair or a bleep-filled tirade, at the very least. Instead, it was announced with no fanfare this week that he will stop making new episodes of his memorably raucous talk show, and neither Springer nor his bosses will talk about it.

"The Jerry Springer Show" won't fully disappear; NBC Universal said this week that the CW and other networks that have bought the show in syndication will air reruns of the slugfest. Producers said "there is a possibility" that more original episodes could be ordered sometime in the future but, since they wouldn't answer questions, it's not known how serious that possibility is.